NCAA Notebook: Summitt's alma mater makes debut

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Pat Summitt and Tennessee have long been a fixture in the NCAA tournament. Now her alma mater is joining in for the first time.

Tennessee-Martin is the No. 15 seed in the Philadelphia Regional and plays Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium in Saturday’s first round. It’s the tournament debut for a program that starts four freshmen and plays on a court bearing the Hall of Famer’s name.

“It’s kind of the beginning tradition of women’s basketball when you talk about what Coach Summitt has meant to the game and the people around UTM that are still there that were factors in influencing her career,” second-year coach Kevin McMillan said Friday. “We just feel like it’s neat that we’re getting publicity in that group.”

Summitt is the program’s No. 4 all-time scorer (1,405 points). ESPN showed a photo of Summitt from her playing days — wearing short shorts and Chuck Taylors — during Monday’s selection show that had her current players howling with laughter.

“Obviously I was very, very proud,” Summitt said this week. “I’m just so excited. UT Martin was the best place for me.”

Still, McMillan knows it will be tough for his young team to hang with the two-time defending Atlantic Coast Conference champions on their court.

“If they can overcome those nerves and if they can get a couple of things to fall their way, they’re a fun bunch to watch play,” he said. “They’re a special bunch and I hope that the country gets to see them play the way they can.”

•ARICO’S OTHER TEAM: Not everything St. John’s coach Kim Barnes Arico has learned on the bench comes from the college level.

Arico, whose ninth-seeded Red Storm face eighth-seeded Texas Tech in the Spokane Regional, also coaches her son’s fourth-grade travel basketball team. In her son’s first tournament this season, Arico was pleading with the referee for a timeout and couldn’t get one.

“I said, ‘No, sir. I can get a timeout after the other team scores the basket.’ And he said, ‘Hey, lady. You don’t know the rules,’” Arico said with a chuckle. “Then I had a boy on the other team trash talking to my son, ‘At least we don’t have a lady for our coach.’ ”

Arico was forced to skip this week’s championship game, with her husband filling in as her son’s team won. She said the experience of leading that team has made her a better coach on the college level.

“I think being a parent has helped me a tremendous amount relating to the young ladies that we have in our program,” she said. “Because now I don’t only understand from a coaching perspective, but actually from a mom just how they wanted to be treated, just how they want to be taken care of.”

She belted out the National Anthem before senior night at the Wildcats’ last home game. On Friday, she surprised for teammate A’dia Mathies at Kentucky’s news conference at The Pit in Albuquerque, N.M., by singing her a soulful rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

“I don’t do that very often,” Dunlap said of singing the National Anthem. “That was a one-time thing. Well, I might do it again later on in life. But that was the first time I did that, so I was pretty nervous. But playing basketball is pretty easy to do.”

•OLD NEWS: No team has been quite as up and down as Ohio State going into its first-round game against Central Florida at St. John Arena in Columbus, the backup facility for the Buckeyes’ home games.

The Buckeyes soared to No. 6 in the rankings by winning their first seven games, then lost nine of 14. Just when it appeared they would miss the NCAAs for the first time in coach Jim Foster’s nine seasons, they regrouped to win their last nine games, capture the Big Ten tournament title and grab a No. 4 seed.

“It was in the past, but you never forget where we were to where we are now,” point guard Samantha Prahalis said of the nine-loss swoon. “I just use that as motivation. People bring it up and it’s something that happened. It’s just something that we had to overcome as a team.”

•THE PRESS IS ON: Bowling Green was excited about winning the Mid-American Conference tournament title to earn an automatic NCAA berth. But their excitement was tempered when they saw their opponent.

“When we drew Georgia Tech, you took a big gulp because you knew how big, how athletic, how strong they are — and their ability to press you from start to finish,” coach Curt Miller said.

All that pressure is the basis of the Yellow Jackets program built by coach MaChelle Joseph. Don’t expect a letup, either.

“We’re going to press you coming out of the locker room; we’re going to press you going into the locker room,” she said.

•GREEN WITH ENVY: Notre Dame players and female coaches will be easy to spot off the court as well as on it. Since 1997, it’s been a Fighting Irish tradition to wear green nail polish throughout the NCAAs.

The Irish scored a second-round win on St. Patrick’s Day at Texas that year and went on to their first Final Four. As a show of solidarity, the male members of the travel party usually paint their left pinky green, and some (including associate head coach Jonathan Tsipis) have even gone so far as to shave their heads for the tournament.

Notre Dame is a No. 2 seed facing No. 15 Utah in the first round of the Dayton Regional in Salt Lake City.